


hiding just to breathe

by elliotfromseattle



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Chicago Firefighters (Blaseball Team), Gen, every single day i think about the call and how it impacts the chicago firefighters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28445307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliotfromseattle/pseuds/elliotfromseattle
Summary: On the third call, she’d get up. That was her promise to herself. But until then, she’d allow herself the luxury of hope.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	hiding just to breathe

**Author's Note:**

> [listen in podfic format here! thank you flowersforgraves!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809707)

Rivers Rosa's phone rang for the second time that morning.

She didn't pick it up. 

She’d been lying in bed, staring at her clock since she woke up, listening to The Call: the sirens and voices of dispatch that constantly played in her mind. She focused on the voices, waiting for them to give her the alert, for dispatch to say those magic words. 

On the third call, she’d get up. That was her promise to herself. But until then, she’d allow herself the luxury of hope. 

It hadn't always been this. She didn't used to whisper prayers under her breath before every game, trying to will it to be cancelled. She used to like playing blaseball, even. She'd played it for all of high school--not because she was contacted by mysterious gods, but because she'd enjoyed it, because she'd had fun at every game whether she was pitching or batting. 

It was hard to pinpoint when exactly Rivers began to hate blaseball. Was it when she'd been chosen to play for the Firefighters team, forced into the position by the ever-shifting demands of her line of work? Was it after the book had opened, when she discovered that both halves of her job would now carry a risk of dying in flames? Was it after Tyreek died, when she discovered that they weren't bluffing about the risk of dying in flames?

The reverb should've been the best thing that had ever happened to her. She only had to play once every five days. But it was still too often. She was tired. She wished she could just be allowed to stop playing. 

But she knew that there was only one way out. And that one way out was part of why she hated the whole thing in the first place. Knowing how it'll all eventually end for her. 

The thing about it was this:

Taking on the risks of becoming a firefighter, that was something Rivers was okay with. Her life was on the line, sure, but it was in order to protect others, to keep the city that she loved safe. And besides, she wasn't the type of person to have been able to refuse The Call. The day she'd woken up with its sounds constantly on loop inside her head, she knew her lifelong duty.

Playing blaseball did not save lives.

And she knew, in some deep part of her, that joining the ILB was part of Mx. Chicago's large scale plan, a plan that surpassed her lifespan tenfold. She knew this because she could sense glimpses of it, encoded deep in the sound of sirens that followed her wherever she went, filling her with a sense of duty, a sense of purpose, and an understanding that being on the team was a part of this plan to keep Chicago alive and the Fire at bay. 

But she didn't have to like it.

Her phone rang a third time. 

"Fuck," She whispered to herself, rolling over in bed to grab the flip phone off her night stand. She didn't have the number saved but recognized it as Joshua's. She flipped it open, putting on the groggiest, most monotone voice she could muster. 

"Hello?"

"Rivers, the game started ten minutes ago. Where are you?"

"Overslept."

Rivers could hear the disappointed sigh on the other side. She knew she should feel worse about putting him through this same old song and dance every five days. Caleb and Isaac certainly tried to make her feel like shit for it, constantly reminding her that she wasn't a team player. Who cares about being a team player when it wasn't a team she even wanted to join? 

"Don't leave us waiting for seven hours this time. You know the umps won't let the game start without you. And we can't leave until it ends."

"I know. I won't be that late."

Another sigh of disappointment.

"Please just pitch the ball, Rivers."

He hung up with a click.

Rivers sat up in the bed, putting her head in her hands for a few minutes. She finally got up, groaning as her elbow cracked (god, pitching today was going to be a nightmare, wasn't it) as she opened her closet doors to get her uniform. 

She stared at her reflection in the mirror on the back of the closet door for a moment, her gaze piercing her in return. The sirens grew louder, intertwining with the crackling of radio static--a constant reminder of that promise she made to the city she was from. She slipped an elastic off her wrist and put her messy hair up in a ponytail. 

"I'll play, Mx. Chicago," She whispered, the sound echoing in the room. "But you can't make me be any good at it."

She thought she heard dispatch laugh in the back of her mind as she tied her cleats and walked out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> this idea came to me in a haze so i instantly had to jot it down. wrote the whole thing while watching breaking dawn part 1. fun fact: rivers rosa's pregame ritual is whispering 
> 
> hope u enjoyed it, title is from haunted house by sir babygirl

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] hiding just to breathe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809707) by [ffg_podfics (flowersforgraves)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/pseuds/ffg_podfics)




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